MUNKACSY, moon'lcache, Michael, Hun garian painter: b. Munkics, Bereg County, Hungary, 10 Oct. 1846; d. Endenich, near Bonn, I May 1900. His real name was Lieb, but he is known only under the assumed name derived from that of his birthplace. Beginning life as a carpenter, he met the strolling portrait painter, Szamossy, in Gyula, who was so much struck by the artisan's interest in art that he gave him painung lessons. Munkicsy proceeded to paint portraits and genre pictures, taking his subjects from common country life. One of these early canvases, 'A Country Idyll,' was purchased by the Art Union of Pesth. He eventually put himself under the instruction of the battle-painter, Franz Adam, at Munich. He made rapid progress and the Hungarian government awarded him the first prize for genre paintings thrice in succession and he was thus enabled to take up his residence at Dus seldorf and to study under Knaus and Vautier. The first great picture he painted was
was produced by his 'Christ Before Pilate' (1882), which some critics consider the greatest religious picture of its century. This vast can vas is startling in its freshness of conception, its living action, the mingled grandeur and pathos which the artist has infused into his treatment of the central figure, as well as its masterly composition and technique. It has been exhibited in all quarters of the civilized world and was bought by John Wanamaker of Philadelphia for $120,000. It was followed by his dramatic 'Christ on Calvary,' the religious intensity of which is heightened by the accurate fidelity to differing national types with which the spectators of the Crucifixion are portrayed; a piece of realism whose suggestiveness is ob vious. In 1886, he produced 'The Last Mo ments of Mozart,' now in the collection of Gen. Russell Alger, Detroit, Mich. The pres ent owner paid $50,000 for this pathetic pic ture, in which the composer is listening to his still uncompleted requiem, sung at his bedside by his favorite singers, the night before his death. The last three years of his life this painter suffered from mental alienation and closed his days in a sanitarium. In addition to the works already mentioned, 'The Music Room' and 'The Two Families' are in the Metropolitan Museum in New York; 'The Prowlers of the Night' is in the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia, and 'The Story of the Battle' is in the Walters Gallery, Baltimore. Consult Tait, T. R., 'Michael Munkicsy' (in American Art Review, Vol. II, Boston 1881).